


I love you

by ChocoNut



Series: Many ways to say I love you [90]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Across seasons, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Confessions, F/M, Feelings, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoNut/pseuds/ChocoNut
Summary: I love you,he wants to say, so many times. Never once, he actually does, until, at last, he decides it is time.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Many ways to say I love you [90]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1234904
Comments: 12
Kudos: 94





	I love you

**Author's Note:**

> Begins at Riverrun and ends with 8x4.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he says, brushing away the disturbing thought when Brienne hints at a possible clash, a conflict of interests, an inevitable moment where they might be compelled to draw their blades on each other.

But what he means, what he wishes she could see, is something else entirely. 

_Fuck loyalty, fuck everything that’s keeping us apart…_ If only things were different between them. If only— 

A brief mingling of their eyes—no more than that, he gets, and then she’s gone. Whether better times will come or not, he cannot predict. Whether he’ll see her or not, he doesn’t know. His heart bursts out in yearning, craving to have her by his side night and day, to live and die in her arms. Yet, he wishes her safe and away from him, for what if their next meeting is destined to be in a battlefield? 

_I love you,_ he wants to say, to ask the gentle breeze outside to carry his affection to her, but all he can do is sigh wistfully at her retreating form.

Hope—that is all he has for now. 

+++++

Duty or love?

One, they say, is the death of the other, and never has there been a truth greater than this! 

Chest heavy, eyes smarting at the corners, he watches her row away. If only he could let go of all that’s keeping him tied here… If only he could fly like the bird heading towards her, free and unbound, the sky, all its to explore, to be where it pleases.

If only—

The Freys, the Blackfish… none of it matters anymore. What good is a victory if the heart isn’t in it? He might have won the castle, but what of the loss within? What good is a life if he cannot follow his heart?

Unbidden, his hand rises in a final farewell when she turns to meet his eyes. Unbidden, he sends out a message she cannot hear, a touch she cannot feel. When she waves back, his wishes, he directs her way. When she turns away, his hand makes it to his heart while his mind whispers a frantic appeal to the powers beyond him to keep her safe.

 _I love you,_ he wants to say, but the words, stubborn and adamantly choosing to reside deep in his heart, refrain from journeying to his lips, the arrogant winds refusing to oblige him, turning him down when he insists they carry his feelings to her.

+++++

Half an eye on Cersei who’s observing them from a distance and the rest on the wench who dares to confront him in her presence, Jaime is torn between the urge to explain himself and the necessity to push her away.

 _Don’t do that to me,_ he pleads not aloud when big blue eyes, sharper than daggers, cut through his. They scream of shock, of disbelief, of shattered expectations, and—he realizes with a churn of his stomach—a massive crack in the foundation of her faith in him.

 _I want to,_ he’s about to say, _I wish I could,_ when she demands he fuck loyalty, when she appeals to him to reason with the queen, but unspoken longing is all that becomes of him when he steals a glimpse of his sister glaring daggers at her.

 _Not at the cost of your honour and life,_ he decides, when she persists her persuasive gaze, hoping he might thaw, hoping she’d get somewhere further than disappointment. With a harsh denial as cold as he can make it, he turns her down, the hardened look that’s far from the mess he is within and his terse exit burying the last remaining strands of her hope.

 _I love you,_ he wants to say, but hides the real _him_ beneath a scathing gaze as he leaves his heart behind and walks away.

+++++

“Because this goes beyond houses.” 

He stands before the young woman who calls herself Queen, calls him the slayer of her father, but what lies beneath his voice and these words means to reach out to the one behind him, his mind itching to touch her when, for a golden little moment, he has eyes only for her. 

_I did fuck loyalty,_ he tells her, passing on these unspoken words through his gaze.

His lips shy away, lurk behind the beginnings of a smile when she springs to his defense, strives to turn the world on his side, but his eyes cannot hold back. They crinkle in a gentle acknowledgement when she sings praises of his deeds. They vow never to let her down when she vouches for him, lays bare before the world and all who stand in judgement of her, her trust in him.

When she makes it to the door, when he looks deep into those blue pools that still believe in him, nothing else matters. The crowd ceases to exist and time comes to a standstill. 

_I did it for you,_ he exhales, letting the words float across to her. _Because I love you._

+++++

The urge to chase her out to the training yard is strong, so overpowering that he rushes away after her, but when his brother chooses that very instant to seek him out for a chat, a tryst with patience, he is tormented with, a few more minutes away until he can, at last, have a peaceful word with the wench.

But when the moment comes, alas, he’s capable of no more than a smitten lad one quarter his age. Praises are all he has for her, a gushing sign of his pent up admiration, but when she pushes them away, recalling his scathing tongue, instead, he knows not what to do except— 

“I came to Winterfell because—”

She waits, refrains from looking at him, but he cannot yet look her in the eye and come out with the truth. Insults were easy to throw at her, but this—this summons a _something_ he isn’t yet ready with.

 _I love you,_ he tries to finish it with, but these words choose to hide in his mind, others that make it to his lips, evasive, deciding to run around in circles, hoping if they enclosed her in their binding, she’d somehow get the point.

 _I love you,_ is all he means, when he offers to serve under her command, when he hopes she’ll have him. 

+++++

“Kneel,” he gently repeats, reassuring her with his eyes that this is no joke.

She looks up at him, and he knows she believes him, that she’s putting all her trust into him, the knowledge, while banishing his apprehensions, leaving him hugely overwhelmed.

 _I love you,_ says his blade when it kisses her shoulder. 

_I love you,_ is what each line sounds to him when he recites the vows, when he loses himself in the moment.

This is not him, but something deep inside him. He isn’t even here. He— 

“Arise, Brienne of Tarth—” he has to bring himself back, keep his voice from breaking “—a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

 _And the Queen of my heart,_ his heart almost blurts out, when they leave the world aside for a short priceless moment before joining their companions.

+++++

Snow and ash and blood are just among the few horrors around them. The stench of decay, the darkness of death and destruction, a few more. 

Despite all that, he feels warm because she is by his side. She is his torch in the midst of this gloom, she is the fire within him, the force that keeps him going.

 _I love her,_ screams his will to keep her safe when he stabs through the one that almost strikes her down.

 _I love you,_ he wants to yell over the mayhem every time they get close.

“I love you, Brienne,” he gasps out aloud in desperate urgency, when he’s surrounded, doomed to soon join the walking dead, but by the time she gets to him, gone are the words, up and above in a puff of smoke, lost in the din.

+++++

“You sound quite jealous,” she breathes, cheeks flushed at her observation, the realization of what it might imply. “Why?”

“Do you really want to know why?” he bursts out, burning—with envy, for her.

“I do,” she coyly insists, pretending to be oblivious of the obvious. “Why?”

A dozen reasons come to mind as he prepares his answer, each more elaborate, more fitting than the previous. But now is not the time to slip into lengthy speeches or exhaustive proclamations of love. Now is the time to— 

Leaving the tangled web of words in his mind be, Jaime affectionately cups her cheek. “Because I love you,” he says, choosing to string the essence of them all together in this simple confession, letting his feelings get to her unhindered this time. 

Tender words of affection in return, she has for him, straight from her heart, and when he tastes her sweet lips, he whispers it again, lets it drift down his breath to hers. 

_I love you, Brienne. I always will._

**Author's Note:**

> Another trip through Jaime's mind as he wavers around those words. Until, of course, he says it :)  
> Thank you for reading another of my ramblings!


End file.
